Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1887-05-21
Washington Letter.
WASHINGTON, May 1G, 1887.

$3.50 ~A~oV w PIoVp pNA ONeti WIN lid
abundant leisure, and with the great
advantages, social, literary, and spec
tacular, which life at the Capital
affords, is filed with longing. If the
youth and maiden are not angels,
they may be filled with envy. The
enchantment which distance lends
the alleged happy lot is often provoca-
tive of envy. Perhaps the only hap
Ply lot is the little one of six by three
feet upon which daisies cluster, but
in which there is enchantment only
for those who have seen irridescent
bubbles of life burst at the touch, in
Guiding even the bubble of a govern
ment position. But this is a digres-
sion from thestraightand narrow path
ofa Washington correspondent.
Your correspondent wishes to ex-
plain that he was not discharged, he
resigned and retired into the business
of journalism, and 1 look back on
my experience as a Government
clerk without envy or longing. But
to the average eX-clerk the retrospect
is much less enviable now, than it
was then in 1883. Perhaps the great
est i'll and terror of youth is the
school examination. Oh! dost thou
remember? Think of a life of pro-
tracted school examinations! Such
is to be the future life of the Govern
ment clerk! He may no longer
drive his pen in peace, or furtiyely
read his newspaper. President Cleve-
land has decreed that he shall stand
an examination for promotion, wheth-
er he wants promotion or not, and
that if he fails to reach an average of
IS per cent, he must step down and
out. Saints, sinners and the Beecher
family! but this is hard on the gilded
and kalsomined youth and maiden
whom Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Ar
thur, Blaine, Malone, Conkling and
all those illustrious spoilers pensioned
upon the Treasury in the riotous
days of construction and carpet bags.
The very idea of a competitive ex-
animation is quite paralyzing, for
they know little spelling, and less
arithmetic. Geography, mahogany,
physics and Mysteries are all the
same to them. There has been an
increased demaud for school books in
Washington during the past week,
and the Capital of the United States
is likely TO be the paradise of peda-
gogues. Already they have adver-
tised to prepare applicants for civil
service examination. But the fact
remains that an education cannot be
improvised, and the middle aged
Republican clerks who have impair
ed their minds as well as their hearts
in straining to keep alive the memo
ries and the policy of the war, have no
vitality left for the study of text
books.
The past week added another to
the many pageants which Washing
ton has witnessed. The Statue Of
Garfield was unveiled with much
parade and oratory. FX-Speaker
Kiefer made a proliX and turgid adj
dress. The President had a hard
role to enact as representative of the
Nation in accepting the monument,
which he did in little speech which
was not very bad, considering the
necessary embarrassment which a
well informed honest man must feel
when called upon to speak well of a
small politician, a narrow partisan,
and a President who was the weak
puppet of Blaine. Is the President
well informed? Has he forgotten
the part that Garfield took in de-
frauding the country of its chosen
president in 1876? Has he forgotten
that it was this same man who from
the stump told Republican audiences,
in an era of peace, twenty years after
the war, to look along the barrels of
their rifles and vote as they shot?
Say nothing but good Of the dead?
Classic bosh Then erect statues in
honor of Nero and Judas Iseariot,
for they too are dead. am sick of
these everlasting statues to spurious
mushroom fame, Tilden, whom
Garfield defrauded of the Presidency,
and thus made his own election pos
sible, can afford to wait a hundred
years for his statue, but when it is
built, no one looking even at Wash
ington's monument should be able to
say excelsior.
Great captains with their guns and drums
Disturb our judgement for the hour;
But at last silence comes
| Thooo oil ,.o ,,oro ord Stan dino IiEe,o to,ror